Photography Friday: Liang Shitai 梁时泰

Liang Shitai 梁时泰 (1870s-1880s) — also known as Liang Seetay — was a Cantonese studio photographer specializing in portraits of high-ranking officials. He named his studio after himself, similarly to other local studios at that time. He first established himself in Hong Kong in the early 1870s, then relocated to Shanghai in the late 1870s, and later to Tianjin in the 1880s. From that moment on, he became popular among the ruling elite. Frequently commissioned to photograph gentry’s residences and gardens, his effort led to a wide array of visual material.

Photography Friday is a regular feature from Shanghaiist in association with Photography of China, Marine Cabos’s fantastic trilingual blog about photography and photographers in China.